AB InBev stops brewing gueuze

Belgian brewing giant AB InBev has announced that it will no longer brew Belle-Vue Gueuze beer due to insufficient demand.

“The beer has been removed from our range,” a spokesperson for AB InBev said of the decision, adding that production of Belle-Vue Kriek at the brewery in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, just outside Brussels, will continue.

Belle-Vue Gueuze was originally launched by Constant Vanden Stock, brewer and later chairman of football club RSC Anderlecht. After Vanden Stock took over the family brewery following the second world war, he came up with the idea of marketing a sweetened gueuze.

Gueuze beer is traditionally sour. The sweeter gueuze in bottles with a crown cap - instead of a cork - proved to be successful.

Production peaked between the 1960s and 1980s with an estimated annual output of 130,000 hectolitres, according to specialist journalist Geert Van Lierde.

Interbrew, later AB InBev, took over the Belle-Vue brewery from the Vanden Stock family in 1991. In recent years, volumes have plummeted and consumption trends have changed.

Kriek, which has a similar history to gueuze, with an original version marked by acidity that later gave way to sweeter interpretations, will continue to be brewed in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, in an area known for its lambic beer production.

AB InBev said that the discontinuation of gueuze production will not result in any job losses.